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October 26, 2011

A Danielewski Halloween

Leave a Comment / Tommywood, Uncategorized /
Performance of "The Fifty Year Sword" photo by Ricardo Miranda
Photo by Ricardo Miranda

On Halloween this year, instead of being the best sugar pusher in the neighborhood, or following your inappropriately costumed progeny as they amass their candy fortunes, or abandoning your own hard-earned dignity for a night of brew-fueled revelry, let me steer the adults amongst you to REDCAT, the CalArts downtown theater at Walt Disney Concert Hall, where for one night only, Mark Z. Danielewski will conduct a staged reading with shadow puppets and musical accompaniment of his Halloween-set story, “The Fifty Year Sword.” The evening will also raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in honor of the son of one of Danielewski’s close friends, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on Halloween.

“ ‘The Fifty Year Sword’ is a tale that is told to five orphans,” Danielewski, 45, explained recently, “and slowly, through the tale, you realize that the orphans are being threatened and that threat is severe enough to curtail their lives. Anyone who is cut by any of the swords will feel that cut in their 50th year… . It creates a very specific date, and, on a philosophical level, if you knew you were going to die at this time, it would shape your life. So the idea is, how do you protect those children, and who protects them?”

The performance will feature five actors providing the voices, the 40-foot shadows of shadow-caster Christine Marie, sound design by John Zalewski and music from several original Harry Partch instruments (which is appropriate, as Partch created his own instruments to play a tonal scale of his own invention, much as Danielewski does through his fiction).

Danielewski, author of the experimental novels “House of Leaves” and “Only Revolutions,” has lived in Los Angeles for more than two decades, and this performance at REDCAT is a continuation of his attempts to give meaning to contemporary life by pushing the conventions and traditions of storytelling.

Danielewski was born in New York City. His father, Tad Danielewski, was a Polish-born director and acting teacher who, as a young man, survived the Warsaw uprising only to be sent to a Nazi labor camp before being rescued by the American forces. In the United States, Tad was a director during the golden age of television, directing “Omnibus,” then went on to become a programming executive at NBC who, among his claims to fame, gave Woody Allen his first TV job.

However, when the younger Danielewski was growing up, his father was working on a series of films that had the family moving to far-flung locations, including traveling to Ghana for the Emmy Award-winning series “Africa” and working with Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck on “The Guide,” about India. Danielewski said his parents presented culture as something both accessible and not expensive. “You go to the Prado and look at these amazing paintings, and my Mom would say, ‘Draw this.’ We would go to the movies, and my father would say, ‘Let’s talk about how this is a political movie. How is it made?’ ”

In 1972, his father was making a movie in Spain, “España Puerta Abierta,” on which he had spent two years and his life savings of $2 million, when the film was confiscated by the Franco government. Danielewski’s father returned to New York with, literally, nothing to show. This setback led to the greatest dislocation in Danielewski’s young life, when his father accepted an offer to become a tenured professor and start a film department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. “That’s where I ended up going to high school,” Danielewski said. “It would have been a great experience if we were Mormons, but we weren’t.” he added.”

Danielewski says he made many good friends, some of whom he remains close with to this day, but they were not, in his words, “like-minded … . They did not have a sense of cultural value.”

The result? “I have this advice for parents who want their kids to go to great colleges,” he said. “Move them to a place that they deem as hellish. It will motivate them to get out of there. I knew that going to a good university would allow me to get back to a place where people like analyzing movies and reading texts.”

Danielewski found all that, and Harold Bloom, at Yale.

Although he never took a course from Bloom, he knew he was among those infected with Bloom’s love of literature. Danielewski, who graduated in 1988, majored in English at a time when Yale was swirling in the controversies surrounding deconstructionist literary theory, but Bloom inspired in Danielewski a love of Shakespeare and Wallace Stevens. Danielewski also was drawn to the romanticism of the French poets — Apollinaire and Mallarmé as well as Rimbaud and Verlaine, whom he first learned of through a song on Bob Dylan’s ““Blood on the Tracks.””

If I dwell on Danielewski’s formative intellectual roots, it is because they continue to inform his work. Danielewski said he knew from childhood that he would be a novelist. “House of Leaves,” which Danielewski began when he was 26 and published 11 years later, combines every form of literature that interests Danielewski, from the traditional coming-of-age story of a young hipster, to the Hollywood genre films, to academic citations, including footnotes replete with irony; it is a meta-work of the modern age. As Danielewski said by way of analogy: “In the old days, you were going to have one job that was going to last most of your life. Nowadays, kids have three or four jobs and … they’re assembling a life.” Similarly, Danielewski, who at various times has been a plumber, English teacher and served morning coffee, has assembled not only a life, but a lifework.

He said he sees the Halloween performance of “The Fifty Year Sword” as part of an ongoing effort “to get out of my comfort zone.” Dealing with a range of personalities, booking rehearsal studios and reacting to how performers change his words is not his usual form.

Which is why, if you are looking for a different sort of Halloween evening, REDCAT is for you. “The piece is not entirely accessible,” he admits. “It’s difficult. You have to think about it. There is a very definite meaning there, and it does emerge.

“These are complicated ideas: What is, exactly, forgiveness, what is fate, what holds things together, what cuts things apart?”

So consider it this way: “We’re raising money for the JDRF. It’s for those people who don’t want to have sugar. It’s … substantial. So maybe I’m offering apples instead of candy,” Danielewski, said, adding with a laugh, “and maybe those apples have razor blades in them.”

“Mark Z. Danielewski: The Fifty Year Sword,” Mon., Oct. 31, 8:30 p.m. $20 (general), $16 (students), $10 (CalArts students, faculty and staff). Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, 631 W. Second St., downtown. (213) 237-2800. redcat.org.

A Danielewski Halloween Read More »

San Gabriel Jewish book festival celebrates 13th year

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Is Featured?, News /

The Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys’ annual Jewish Book Festival is celebrating its 13th year with 13 Jewish literary events.

The festival, held during Jewish Book Month in November, runs Oct. 29 through Dec. 4. Featured speakers include Stephen Fried (Oct. 29), author of “Appetite for America”; Lakers’ photographer Andrew Bernstein (Oct. 30); Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik (Nov. 30); and “Killing Me Softly” composer Charles Fox (Dec. 3).

In addition, the festival is co-sponsoring a talk at the University of La Verne on Nov. 9 with award-winning author and historian Deborah Lipstadt, who will discuss her latest work, “The Eichmann Trial.”

After attending a Jewish Book Council convention in New York this spring to scope out authors, Federation Associate Director Marilyn Weintraub, book festival co-chair Myra Weiss and other members of the festival committee say they have created the most varied list of authors yet.

“What I like is that it opens my eyes to reading books I wouldn’t normally read, and I think that’s what’s so special about the books festival — that it lets you get exposure to books and authors on subject matters you wouldn’t necessarily gravitate to usually,” Weintraub said.

Most of the events will be held at San Gabriel and Pomona valley synagogues and — for the first time — at the Federation itself, which Weiss said makes the festival accessible to all members of the community.

For a list of event dates, times and prices, visit jewishsgpv.org.

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Man-made global warming: Why many of us are skeptical [Part 1]

Leave a Comment / Dennis Prager, News, Opinion /

Read part 2 here.

In the belief that there are people on the left who are more interested in understanding the right rather than in simply dismissing its decency, I would like to briefly explain why many thoughtful people are skeptical of the claims made on behalf of global warming. By “global warming” I am referring to the claims of Al Gore that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing dramatic increases in the Earth’s temperatures; increases that will devastate much of the Earth.

Many of us don’t believe the Al Gore thesis for three primary reasons:

1. There are thousands of scientists in climate science and other scientific fields — some of them among the most distinguished in the world — who do not agree with the Al Gore thesis. One is Richard Lindzen, the atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, widely regarded as America’s leading climatologist. Lindzen has written that “It is generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 will only produce a change of about two degrees Fahrenheit if all else is held constant. This is unlikely to be much to worry about” and “The basis for the weak [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] argument for anthropogenic climate change was shown to be false.”

Another is Freeman Dyson, one the world’s most admired physicists, who in 2009 told The New York Times Magazine, “The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models. … They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.”

Other major skeptical scientists are listed here.

2. They, and many others, point out the obvious fact that throughout the history of the Earth, far more dramatic climate changes have taken place. Greenland was once green, and Iceland was once ice. At one point, the Earth had an ice age and has since warmed considerably — all without one human being living on it, let alone emitting carbon dioxide.

3. We see this doomsday scenario as only the latest in a long line of left-wing hysterias — every one of which turned out to be either fraudulent or wildly exaggerated, and propagated for reasons having little to do with science, but labeled as “science.” When you are wrong 12 out of 12 times, others are not inclined to radically change America’s and the world’s economies by betting that you are right on the 13th.

Here are the three of 12 other left-wing hysterias that have proven false. (Because of space limitations, I have divided this column into two parts, the second of which will appear in these pages on Nov. 11):

1. Nuclear Power

Though strongly opposing fossil-based energy, the left has also opposed clean nuclear energy. The stated reasons? Nuclear energy is not safe because it can leak radiation and because we do not know how to safely dispose of nuclear waste.

This became hysteria more than 30 years ago when the left made the 1979 nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania synonymous with terrible danger from nuclear reactors. Yet, not one person died as a result of Three Mile Island, and exposure to radiation was next to zero.

Even the worst nuclear power disaster in history, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, which was entirely a result of Soviet incompetence and lack of concern for its citizens, was far less injurious than the drama around it suggested. As of 2006, 20 years after the disaster, according to the United Nations: “Only 56 people have died as a direct result of the radiation released at Chernobyl … .”

For the left, such numbers are unacceptably small. Thus, the environmentalist group Greenpeace rejected the United Nations numbers and released a report at the same time declaring that many tens of thousands of people will have died from Chernobyl.

2. Anorexia

Two prominent feminist writers, Gloria Steinem and Naomi Wolf, wrote in their best-selling books, “Revolution From Within” and “The Beauty Myth” — and the news media reported — that 150,000 girls and women a year die of anorexia nervosa. The number is about 200.

3. Silicone Breast Implants

Another left-led hysteria concerned alleged serious dangers of silicone breast implants to women’s health. Feminist and other ideologically driven groups led a campaign to have the implants banned despite the lack of scientific evidence to substantiate their charges. The campaign was successful. In 1991, a California jury awarded $7.3 million to a woman with mixed connective-tissue disease — despite testimony by her doctor that she had showed symptoms two years before getting implants. And the Federal Drug Administration banned the implants in 1992. It wasn’t until 2006 that the FDA bowed to the overwhelming scientific evidence, and reapproved silicone breast implants.

In Part 2, I will list another eight doomsday scenarios of the left, all of which have been promulgated as scientific by the sympathetic news media, and every one of which turned out to be false.

Dennis Prager’s nationally syndicated radio talk show is heard in Los Angeles on KRLA (AM 870) 9 a.m. to noon. His latest project is the Internet-based Prager University (prageru.com).

Man-made global warming: Why many of us are skeptical [Part 1] Read More »

L.A. Sukkah sit-in shows Jews’ passion for politics

Leave a Comment / Bill Boyarsky, News, Opinion /

As I stopped at the sukkah in the Occupy L.A. encampment outside City Hall, I thought of the Jews’ role in the upcoming presidential election, which will be taking place amid a recession and doubts about President Barack Obama’s attitude toward Israel.

The sukkah was an excellent counterpoint to the anti-Semitic drivel coming from a fired Los Angeles substitute teacher and a couple of sign holders on the other side of City Hall.  I ran into Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and his young daughter and son at the sukkah.  They offered me a piece of an excellent honey cake, made by his wife that morning.  Occupy L.A., he told me, was “tapping into the Jewish mission of redemption.  In our society, there is a lot of inequality and injustice, and by them [the protesters] being there, they are bringing attention to these social problems in the most visible way in my lifetime,” he said. At 42, the rabbi noted that he missed the anti-Vietnam war movement.

The presence of one sukkah here is no more solid a tipoff to Jewish political sentiment than the Occupy L.A. encampment is to the electorate at large.  But both are signs of something going on, of unhappiness over joblessness and the injustice of financial institutions that have escaped blame for the recession and prospered during hard times, thanks to the bailout.  Some people have criticized the Occupy movement for being fuzzy about its goals. But what is striking to me is the staying power of the occupiers. And, on the other ideological side, the Tea Party — also anger based — has also shown the same ability to stick around.

A stronger indication of Jewish community sentiment is the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Survey of American Jewish Opinion, released in September. It found that the Jewish community shares other voters’ strong discontent with Obama’s handling of the economy. Just 37 percent of those polled approved of the president’s economic performance. That’s just about the same figure as for all Americans.  And it’s a sharp drop-off from the year before, when 55 percent of Jews supported Obama on the economy, compared to 45 percent of all Americans.

What’s unclear is the personal impact.  How many Jews are unemployed? How many have lost their businesses or are just hanging on? These are what will determine political choices as next November’s election draws near.  The hardship felt by people who are suffering can also radiate outward to family and friends, also shaping their voting behavior.

The number of such people isn’t known. Pini Herman, co-author of The Jewish Journal’s Demographic Duo blog, estimates that there are 25,000 Jewish unemployed in Los Angeles County.  But he also said this is just an educated guess, based on out-of-date population statistics.

Jewish Journal reporters, including myself, have found strong signs of economic hardship in the Jewish community as the recession wears on.  Workers in social service agencies described to me how long-term unemployment has hit Jews who have never before been out of work.  All through last year and into this year, public school administrators have told me of Jewish families returning to the Los Angeles Unified School District because they can’t afford private schools.

Whether they will blame Obama or the Republicans for their plight will be determined by the long campaign ahead and by events yet to occur.  Obama is attacking the Republicans in a populist way that, to a mild extent, echoes what can be heard at the Occupy encampments, as he pushes for passage of the various elements of his jobs bill.  The Republican alternatives—deregulation, more oil drilling, protecting the wealthy from tax increases — may catch on with this disenchanted electorate, but so far there’s been no sign of it.  Polling numbers for Congress, including the Republican House, are worse than Obama’s.

Israel, of course, will be the other factor impacting the Jewish vote.

In 2008, Obama received about 78 percent of the Jewish vote. Lawrence Grossman, in a JTA op-ed on the AJC survey, wrote that “among Orthodox Jews, who make up 9 percent of the sample, disapproval is much higher, 72 percent.”  Evidence of that came earlier this year, when Orthodox Jews helped elect a Republican in a New York congressional district that is one-third Jewish and had not sent a Republican to Congress in 90 years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a big help to the Republicans, as a persistent critic of Obama on Israel.  Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last spring reminded me of a Republican political rally.  The Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it well in a headline: “Is Obama’s Problem That Netanyahu Is a Republican at Heart?”

Whether it is Netanyahu’s love of market-based conservative economics or his distrust of Obama on Israel, the Republicans see Netanyahu and his stand on the settlements as an opportunity. The New York Times reported that the Republican National Committee plans to target several Democratic-held districts where it believes Jewish voters could help them win.  Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner is speaking to Jewish groups.

Republicans have tried this before without much success, but this year Israel is a more polarizing issue.

How decisive an issue Israel will be in November likely will depend on the economy and how angry and insecure voters react to what Obama and the Republicans say about that.  The lesson of the Occupy movement — and the Tea Party — is that people are staying mad and are ready to act on their anger.

Bill Boyarsky is a columnist for The Jewish Journal, Truthdig and L.A. Observed, and the author of “Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times” (Angel City Press).

L.A. Sukkah sit-in shows Jews’ passion for politics Read More »

Chapman U wins, Catholic diocese loses in bid for Crystal Cathedral

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

For the past six months, Crystal Cathedral has been listening to offers for its 40-acre campus in Garden Grove. Reports in may indicated that the property would be ” title=”Diocese of Orange put in a $50 million”>Diocese of Orange put in a $50 million bid.

But in the end the winner was Chapman University. According to the ” title=”here”>here.

Chapman U wins, Catholic diocese loses in bid for Crystal Cathedral Read More »

The Arab Spring and Iraq

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, News, Opinion /

The Arab Spring, as a moniker for the revolution that seemed about to sweep the Middle East earlier this year, has given way to far less cheerful seasonal metaphors — from long, hot summer to dark, dismal winter. In Egypt, where “people power” toppled Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt dictatorship, the dream of freedom has morphed into a nightmare of mob violence and military crackdown. In other countries whose dictators have been more willing to use extreme savagery to hold on to power, the opposition is getting slaughtered — except for Libya, where Western intervention has made the difference.

What lessons should we learn from these depressing developments? And should these lessons include a reassessment of the war in Iraq?

The first lesson is that when it comes to world politics, cynicism is, alas, a safe bet. A few months ago, people who cautioned that the upheaval in the Mideast could lead to the rise of dangerously radical regimes were commonly labeled as paranoid naysayers if not bigots. When Sen. John McCain sounded such a warning last February, the leftist Web site ThinkProgress.com lambasted him for negativity toward a movement pursuing “freedom and self-determination.”

Concerns about politicized Islamic fundamentalism were dismissed because the victorious anti-Mubarak activists were mainly young and modern. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof shrugged off Islamism as a “bogeyman,” asserting that the Coptic Christians he interviewed in Egypt were baffled and offended when he asked if the revolution might end in a more oppressive society.

What would those Copts say now when their community faces escalating aggression? A recent protest by Christians demanding a stop to the violence was brutally dispersed by soldiers, leaving 25 dead and hundreds injured. Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of the Coptic newspaper al-Watani, tells Reuters that “the new emerging faction of Islamists and Salafists [Muslim ultra-fundamentalists] has created havoc since the January revolution.” Nearly 100,000 Christians have fled Egypt.

Other pessimistic predictions, too, are looking prescient. The upcoming parliamentary elections are almost certain to make the Muslim Brotherhood Egypt’s single dominant party — and the military is poised to indefinitely delay full transfer of power to civilians. Meanwhile, measures to stop weapons smuggling to Hamas across the Egyptian border have been virtually discontinued.

The point is not that any revolution in a Muslim country is likely to slide into violent fanaticism; rather, revolutions in general are liable to fall into the hands of the worst factions, be it communists or Islamists. (Even the much-praised secular activists who helped bring down Mubarak are probably more likely to be Che Guevara lovers than classical liberals.)

Critics of the Arab Spring have been accused of supporting democracy in other countries only when those countries do what the West wants. That’s a crude caricature, but it is related to a pesky fact: Peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy is more likely when the revolution is friendly to America and its allies. This was evident in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. Today, of the Arab Spring countries, the most encouraging situation is probably in Tunisia: While a moderate Islamic party is set to lead in the upcoming elections, it is a party that pledges to respect secular law, boasts female candidates who don’t wear the veil and promises expanded trade with the United States.

Unfortunately, Western and American involvement is no panacea either. We do not know whether the Libyan rebels effectively backed by the United States will bring about positive change or a Taliban-style fiasco: despite their professed liberal values, some of their leaders have jihadist ties and are evasive on whether they favor a sharia-governed Islamic state. Now, foreign-policy interventionists lament the West’s failure to help rid Syria of its homicidal tyrant, Bashar al-Assad. But who or what will follow in his wake?

In a recent column, Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl suggests that the woes of the Arab Spring cast the now-reviled Iraq war in a better light: Today’s Iraq, where violence has quieted and rival groups are learning coexistence, is a model for “what Syria, and much of the rest of the Arab Middle East, might hope to be.” Yet the road to this peace lies through several years of strife that took more than 100,000 lives — and it’s not all in the past: An outbreak of violence against Christians took dozens of lives less than a year ago.

Diehl argues that if Syria’s Assad falls, the sectarian and tribal violence could be even worse, without American and allied troops to curb it. Most controversially, he concludes that the invasion of Iraq has been somewhat vindicated — and that “Syrians may well find themselves wishing that it had happened to them.”

There have been predictable cries of outrage at the claim that anyone would welcome a U.S. invasion. But that’s not an outrageous notion unless one wears left-wing blinders: For all the hardships in Iraq, polls consistent ly show about half of Iraqis supporting the 2003 invasion. Still, another Iraq with its human and social costs on both sides is now unthinkable. Too many roads to hell have been paved by humanitarian intentions.

Today, democracy promotion tends to be viewed as naively arrogant: Who are we to bring freedom to other countries? One answer is that “we” — the United States and other industrial democracies — are, for all our flaws, the possessors of the only working model of a free society, as well as a civilization with unmatched economic, cultural and military power. There is no arrogance in seeking to advance the universal values of liberty and human rights — as long as we do so with a sense of realism, and of our own limitations.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine and a columnist at The Boston Globe. She is the author of “Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood.”

The Arab Spring and Iraq Read More »

Letters to the Editor: Gilad Shalit, United Nations, Gelson’s Ad

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor, News, Opinion /

Gilad Shalit

Steven M. Goldberg’s article “The Shame in Surrendering to Evil” (Oct. 21) exhibits the consummate hypocrisy of the World Zionist Organization. I believe that their credo has always been to give 100 percent support for the actions of any Israeli government. They have reversed themselves even though the Israeli populace, intelligence and defense forces, and the Cabinet, were heavily in favor of the deal to release Gilad Shalit.

Martin J. Weisman
Westlake Village

Golda Meir famously said that there will be no peace in the Middle East until the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews. In exchange for Gilad Shalit, perhaps the best that we can hope to accomplish is that, by example, the Arabs learn that the value of all of our children is limitless.

Richard David
Culver City

The release of Sgt. Gilad Shalit can be viewed by most anyone, Jew and non-Jew, as the return of a hero, of a survivor, and as the embodiment of what’s truly great about a 21st-century democracy like Israel.

Although we can’t predict with accuracy what Shalit will do with the remainder of his life, we can be fairly positive he will be an asset to Jews and his country, and will go on to accomplish things anyone who sides with honor, humanity and decency would be proud of.

Individuals like Shalit have always been what makes Israel, if not the envy of the rest of the world, then the source of a high level of respect and admiration. He is an individual most any nation would love to have as a citizen. Most any nation except for the Palestinians.

I couldn’t help but notice the difference between what we Jews regard as a hero and the 1,000 criminals traded for Shalit that they hold up to be “heroes.”

Most of the 1,000 Palestinians released in exchange for one Jewish soldier are what we in the West almost universally label as the scum-of-the-earth types who bomb cafes, murder defenseless civilians and warp the minds of the young with twisted, deviated versions of their religion.

There shouldn’t be a shred of doubt that most of these 1,000 Palestinians released by Israel will not go on to cure AIDS, find a vaccine for malaria, design a space station, invent a computer chip or bring the world any positive innovations.

As some said on arriving fresh from Israeli prisons, unremorseful for their crimes — they will continue to attempt to kill Jews until all the land is free of them.

Could there be a greater example of the differences between the peoples than this prisoner trade?

Peter Shulman
Playa del Rey

Pathway to Peace

Two letters (Difference of Opinion?  Time for a Paradigm Change? Oct. 21) cry out for comment. Referring to your previous editorial, “You and the UN,” Richard Gunther states “that negotiation and compromise is the only path to peace.” Those who agree with Gunther are dead wrong. The only viable path to peace is for Arabs and Muslims to stop brainwashing their children that the land where Israel exists, “All of that land is Arab land!” A tough problem is solved only by getting at the root cause.

And, addressing the prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit, William Langfan (and others) bemoan the lopsided release of prisoners: over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for one Jewish soldier. To avoid such lopsided prisoner exchanges in the future, the emotional hurt to those whose loved ones were murdered, the danger inherent in putting murderers back onto the streets, and encouragement of future anti-Israeli terrorist missions, Israel would be wise to embrace the death sentence for those who kill other people. Speedy trial, sentence and prompt execution would solve the problem. (It would also save Israel the expense of taking care of these prisoners.)

George Epstein
via e-mail

Bravo to Rob Eshman for encouraging a commonsense reaction to the Palestinian U.N. statehood effort (“You and the UN,” Oct. 14). The Palestinian initiative really is not much more than recognizing U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which were adopted after the Six-Day War. Final status of border and security provisions must be negotiated by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but the United States, the Quartet and the United Nations can take the initiative and use this as an opportunity to revive negotiations. It is also an opportunity for both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to call each other’s bluff and accept such an initiative.

David Perel
Los Angeles

Food for Thought

A preview of your Purim cover? Page 36 of the Oct. 21 issue positions Rob Eshman’s informative “Good Meats” description of “highest standards of humane slaughter and kashrut supervision” alongside Gelson’s “Great Traditions … Remember, this simcha is only once-in-a-lifetime” advertisement, ironically highlighting their attractive meat-and-cheese sky-rise on a kaiser roll. Maybe next time Gelson’s could just cut the cheese?!

Peter Reynolds
via e-mail

Letters to the Editor: Gilad Shalit, United Nations, Gelson’s Ad Read More »

An insider’s view of Ariel Sharon

Leave a Comment / Books, Culture, Entertainment, Judaism, Leisure, News /

Ariel Sharon was a figure of controversy throughout his long career in war, politics and diplomacy, but no one can deny that he looms large in the making of the Jewish state.

Sharon was hailed as “Arik, King of Israel” when he returned from battle in the Six-Day War, a kind of latter-day David. But some of his critics still recall his role in the events leading up to the mass killings of Palestinians by Christian-Lebanese Phalangists at Sabra and Shatila, while others are second-guessing his courageous decision to withdraw Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza. Today, because of the strokes he suffered in 2005, Sharon is no longer an active participant in debate or decision-making in Israel, but people all over the world still ask: “What would Arik do?”

“Over the course of nearly sixty years my father has been on the front line of all major national events in Israel,” his youngest son, Gilad Sharon, writes in “Sharon: The Life of a Leader” (HarperCollins, $29.95), a biography that is, at once, intimate and magisterial. “His fingerprints can be found all across the length and width of this country — in the form of over one hundred blooming settlements in the Galilee, the Golan Heights, Samaria, Judea, the Negev and the Arava.”

As part of a national book tour, Gilad Sharon will be in Los Angeles on Nov. 4 to participate in a public conversation with Rob Eshman, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Jewish Journal, part of the annual Celebration of Jewish Books at American Jewish University. (For tickets and information, call (310) 440-1246.)

“Sharon” has been released simultaneously in Hebrew and in an English translation by Mitch Ginsburg. As we should expect from a biography written by its subject’s son, “Sharon” is sentimental rather than critical; indeed, Gilad opens the book with a touching account of the death of his father’s firstborn son, Gur, in a gun accident, an event that cast a long shadow over the life of his father and their family. “Even an early age, I had the feeling that I was supporting my father,” Gilad writes, “despite the objective fact that he was big and strong and I was small and young.”

Yet often this intimate relationship plays to the book’s advantage. When Gilad describes his father’s celebrated experiences in combat — the beginning of the Sharon legend — he is able to offer a wholly surprising insight: “During the Yom Kippur War,” he writes, “soldiers would cling to his shirt, needing to touch him amid the madness.” To be sure, Gilad offers a detailed account of his father’s high-profile experiences as prime minister of Israel, but he always includes a telling detail that an impartial biographer might never know: “ ‘If you’re invited to dinner with the queen, you’d better know your table manners,’ our parents would say.”

In a telephone interview, Gilad Sharon spoke from the family farm in Israel in advance of his visit to Los Angeles.

Jonathan Kirsch:  I think the whole world will be interested in the very last pages of your book, where you describe how your father is today.  Am I correct in my understanding that he is not in a coma?

Gilad Sharon: “Minimal consciousness” is the medical term for his condition. Unfortunately, I cannot talk to him the way I am talking to you right now. When he is asleep, he is asleep, and when he is awake, he opens his eyes. He moves fingers when I ask him to.

JK: If I asked you to single out the one thing your father will be remembered for — and the one thing for which he ought to be remembered — would they be the same thing? Is he misunderstood in any way?

GS: If you ask me why my father was controversial in the early years, I’d say he was so dominant that no one could stay indifferent toward him. His abilities, his achievements, the victories he led the [Israeli Defense Forces] to achieve — all of these put almost everyone else in the shade. As prime minister, however, he enjoyed love and support across political boundaries and all over the world. That’s what counts. Fighting terror is something he did since the end of the 1940s, but for me, the human side of him, which is less known, is the most important part the book. A warm and loving family man with a great sense of humor — these are the qualities that I most care about.

JK: You write that you prepared a position paper for your father on the question of “unilateral action,” which ultimately led to his decision to withdraw from Gaza. What was the extent of your role in that decision?

GS: It was clear that we had to destroy terror, or terror would destroy us. It was clear that the Palestinian Authority would do nothing.  For instance, building the fence to prevent terrorists from coming from Judea and Samaria was also a unilateral step. No one ever put it as a policy. Coming up with an idea is a nice thing, but the ability to listen to people and to decide and then to execute, this is real leadership. I don’t see anyone else in those days, or even today, who would have been able to do it.

JK: Given the troubled state of affairs in Gaza, what is the verdict of history on the decision to withdraw from there?

GS: Some people used to say the results from Gaza brought rockets on Israel. That’s false. The first rocket was fired on April 16, 2001, more than four years before the withdrawal.

There were more rockets and mortars fired during the year before withdrawal than the two years after. There was, and is, a consensus that if we have a peace treaty with the Palestinians, we will not be in Gaza. The only question remaining was: Should we wait for the Palestinians or should we get out of Gaza now?  When my father realized that there was not going to be a peace treaty with the Palestinians, and that we cannot count on them even if there were a treaty, he decided not to wait. 

JK: Your father, it seems to me, had the stature that was required to lead Israel into a very tough decision. Do you think that the current prime minister — or any prospective prime minister — comes anywhere close to your father in terms of stature?

GS: In a moment of honesty, the current prime minister would admit that he still has a long way to go. That’s not a secret.  And that’s what I think, too.

JK: Do you think that the Palestinians will be successful in achieving statehood without a peace treaty with Israel?

GS: The Palestinians declared statehood in 1988, and many countries recognize it. I don’t think that the Palestinian state is the big obstacle. The question is borders.  Israel has lived without fixed borders, too, but we cannot accept the 1967 borders from which we were attacked with no provocation in the past.  If the Palestinians had accepted the U.N. partition in 1947, they would now have a state as old as Israel is right now.

JK: There is one question that I guarantee you will hear on your book tour: What would your father make of President Barack Obama?  Would he regard President Obama as a friend of Israel?

GS: The answer is, yes. The friendship between Israel and the United States is deep and is based on shared values of peace and justice.  We are engaged in a mutual fight against fundamentalist Islamic terror. After the 9/11 attacks, the feeling of mutual destiny became even stronger. It goes well beyond the personal. Prime ministers and presidents come and go, but the ties remain.  Of course, it is much better to have relationships like the one my father had with President Bush. They reached a high level of mutual understanding, and it helps a lot when you have someone whom you know and trust.

For more information about American Jewish University’s Festival of Jewish Books, please visit ” title=”jewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve”>jewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve and can be reached at books@jewishjournal.com.

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Leading Ladies: The diverse legacies of Edie Wasserman and Sue Mengers

Leave a Comment / Hollywood, Is Featured?, News /

Since August, Hollywood has lost two of its leading ladies.

One was the wife of a mogul, a family matriarch, major philanthropist and influential political donor, who even after her death, managed to get both Bill and Hillary Clinton to attend her memorial. The other was a so-called “superagent,” an industry pioneer and Hollywood socialite who, earlier this year, hosted the latest Oscar-winning director for dinner at her home the night before he won the Oscar. 

Separated by just over 15 years, Edie Wasserman, who was 95 when she died, and Sue Mengers, who was 79, were close enough in age to both have adult memories of the Cold War but far enough apart to have realized their potential on different sides of a generational divide.

Wasserman was a wife. And although her position was akin to American royalty, she realized her power through her marriage. As partner to Lew, the industry mogul who transformed the Music Corp. of America (MCA) from the largest talent agency in the world to what would eventually become Universal Studios Inc., Edie was the consummate collaborator. Beyond serving supper to her husband, she created an entire society around them, which mainly reflected her interests — parties, politics, fundraisers — and embodied her values — relationships, democracy, philanthropy. So prized by her husband were her insights and ideas that, behind the scenes, family and friends referred to her as “The General.” Lew had the job title; Edie decided how to spend their money. 

Mengers, on the other hand, was a career woman. As a pioneering female in the male-dominated entertainment agency business of the ’70s, she didn’t so much channel male power as co-opt it. Rather than share dominion with men, she ruled single-handedly, representing some of the most iconic names in entertainment at the height of their careers: Barbra Streisand, Cher, Faye Dunaway, Joan Collins, Burt Reynolds, Nick Nolte and directors Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, Brian De Palma, Bob Fosse and Sidney Lumet. She was unabashed, ingenious and uninhibited, especially when it came to building her career. According to Nikki Finke, Mengers once rented a mink coat just to approach a producer at dinner. Later, she wouldn’t have to — she became one of the most powerful agents in the biz.

Both women had a penchant for parties — glitz and glamour being a girl thing. But judging by temperament, the two women could hardly be more different: Wasserman, who nurtured strong ties between Washington and Hollywood through elaborately detailed affairs and her impeccable manner, epitomized elegance, sophistication and propriety. Mengers, who nurtured strong ties among the creative and media industries by hosting intimate Hollywood salons, epitomized glamour, prestige and rebellion. Wasserman wore pins; Mengers, caftans. Wasserman liked politics; Mengers smoked pot.

But they both commanded attention and respect. Both were known for being strong, not sentimental, forceful, but not fearsome. They knew that as women, the best way to lose power is to act powerful, so instead they settled for witty and wise. Both women were Jewish; Mengers was born in Germany and narrowly escaped the Holocaust; Wasserman was born Beckerman in Cleveland and moved from the Great Depression to the American Dream.

Both inhabited a world of lights, legend and seemingly ludicrous wealth. Even after their deaths — Wasserman in August and Mengers in October — myriad obituaries glorified the grandeur of their lives. But to celebrate only their sparkle belies the many sacrifices they made along the way.

Susan Orlean, a staff writer for The New Yorker, wrote on her blog that “interviewing Sue Mengers was one of the saddest experiences of my professional life.” In a 1994 profile, she quotes Mengers as saying:  “I couldn’t imagine more to life than getting a good part for Nick Nolte … . I never had children … . I didn’t think I could be both a great agent to Barbra Streisand and be a mother to a kid. I chose Streisand. I wouldn’t choose Streisand if I could do it again.”

Mengers probably looked at Wasserman and thought, “She has it all.”

Wasserman had the big family — a daughter, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. But as a woman, her achievements will probably never be seen as distinct from her husband’s — or even possible without him. No matter how many leaders she ushered into office or how many ideas she contributed to the success of MCA, or how many students she enabled to study at UCLA or how many elderly she saved through the $100 million she raised for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, she never got singular credit for her contributions. Some probably snickered, “Easy if you’re married to a mogul.”

Wasserman probably looked at Mengers and thought, “She did it all herself.”

In an industry perennially preoccupied with numbers, how do you measure a life? Number on tax return? Number of dollars raised? Children reared? Number of movie stars at your dining room table? Wasserman and Mengers were disparate emblems of success, working their way through life according to a self-styled system of metrics.

Who was the more successful woman? To answer the question is to miss the point.

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My Single Peeps: Michele K.

Leave a Comment / Culture, Is Featured?, My Single Peeps, News, Singles /

As soon as Michele sits down with me, she says, “I’m crap at talking about myself.” Hear it with a British accent, and it’s 10 times cuter. I’ve known Michele for years — she’s a friend of a friend — and I realize I don’t know a whole lot about her. She really is crap at talking about herself. She’s a great listener. And unlike the rest of us who moved to Los Angeles because we’re desperate for attention due to getting lost in big, loud families and having dead fathers (just me?), Michele is quietly comfortable with who she is.

Michele grew up in England, in a small Jewish community outside of London. “We grew up kosher, Shabbat, and that’s kind of how everyone was there.” But, she says, “There were very few Jews in my high school.” To counter that, her parents sent her to a Zionist camp, “which was all about Israel. I spent a year in Israel when I was 18 and made aliyah when I was 27. I lived in Israel for seven years. I grew up to be a Zionist.”

She moved to Los Angeles 11 years ago. “Israel’s not an easy place to live. I had the best time, a great life socially, but work-wise and living-wise it’s a tough place. Israelis are tough. Energy’s tough.” 

Michele runs her own business, Mak Designs. “I do design consultancy. I go to homes or events and help people figure out what colors they want. I don’t even need to buy new stuff. I’ll help them organize their house. I do a lot of weddings.”

She’s 43, but is open to dating anyone between 35 and 50. “I want to have a family. I think that’s important. I’m definitely interested in someone who wants to have kids.” She’s also spiritual and looking for someone similarly minded, who’s “not just living in the physical.” Although she wasn’t raised in a spiritual home, it always appealed to her. “I was always interested in angels and going to psychics and meditation, and it just grew and grew. I was always looking for ways to change and ways to grow. I don’t think you can change in this world unless you have some kind of faith, some kind of spiritual path, some kind of connection to God initially.”

I ask her more about being spiritual, and she says, “I don’t want to freak people out. I wouldn’t use the word normal, but I’m a very grounded, practical person. I believe in the physical, I’m grounded, I’m on this planet. I think you have to balance the spiritual and the physical. Some people go off on a mountain and meditate, but what are they actually doing with their lives?”

I wind my way back to the subject of dating and ask her if she works at it. “Oh God, no one can fault me for not trying. I date. I’ve been in lots of relationships. I broke up with someone recently and started dating again. Even though I get to the point of ‘I’m not going on a f—-ing blind date ever again,’ I do. I just think I haven’t met the right guy. I’m not looking for Mr. Regular. I think I’m always looking for something more. And I think those guys aren’t easy to find.” 

If you’re interested in anyone you see on My Single Peeps, send an e-mail and a picture, including the person’s name in the subject line, to mysinglepeeps@jewishjournal.com, and we’ll forward it to your favorite peep.

Seth Menachem is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. You can see more of his work on his Web site, sethmenachem.com, and meet even more single peeps at mysinglepeeps.com.

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