fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

November 5, 2013

Israel, Palestinians grim on peace talks before Kerry visit

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Israel, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday the three-month-old peace talks pressed on them by Washington are going nowhere, painting a grim picture for a visit this week by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Few details have emerged from negotiating sessions held at unannounced times and at secret locations in line with pledges to keep a lid on leaks.

But both sides have been airing their frustration over a lack of progress in the U.S.-brokered talks aimed at resolving core issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state, security arrangements, the future of Israeli settlements and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

“The Palestinians are not conducting the talks in good faith,” Gideon Saar, the Israeli interior minister who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Army Radio. “(The Palestinians) are locked in their positions and are showing no flexibility on their starting positions.”

In a speech broadcast on Monday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said: “After all the rounds of negotiations there is nothing on the ground.”

With both sides already trading blame over the absence of any sign of movement in the negotiations, Kerry will hold separate meetings on Wednesday with Netanyahu and Abbas.

On the sidelines of the peace talks, Israel has released half of the 104 Palestinian prisoners it pledged to free under a deal Kerry brokered to draw Abbas back to negotiations after a three-year break over Israeli settlement-building.

Israel says continued housing construction in settlements, in areas it intends to keep in any peace accord, was part of those understandings, which led to the return home of long-serving Palestinian inmates convicted of killing Israelis.

In tandem with the release of 26 men last week, Israel pressed ahead with plans to build 3,500 more settler homes in the West Bank, a move widely seen as an attempt by Netanyahu to placate hardliners in his government.

Nabil Abu Rdeineh, an Abbas spokesman, condemned the settlement campaign but said Palestinians remained committed to the negotiations.

“What's required is a firm American position on Israel's provocations. Israel is continuing its policy of putting obstacles in front of the peace process – every time Kerry comes to the region they announce more settlements.”

LINKAGE

Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of reneging on what he said was an agreed prisoners-settlements link.

“If they can't even … stand beside and behind the agreements that we had, that we release prisoners but we continue building, then how can I see that they'll actually stand by the larger issues?” he said in an interview with the Israel-based i24 television news channel.

Abbas, speaking to his Fatah party on Sunday, voiced opposition to any such linkage, cautioning that “this equation could blow up the talks” and “there could be tensions soon”.

The settlements that Israel has built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal by most countries. Israel cites historical and biblical links to the areas, where about 500,000 Israelis now live alongside 2.5 million Palestinians.

Israeli media on Monday reported that Kerry, who has given the sides nine months to reach a deal, plans in January to introduce a peace proposal if no major progress is made.

At a news conference in Riyadh on Monday, Kerry said there was no such plan “at this point in time”. He has spoken publicly of possible U.S. bridging proposals if no major progress is made.

Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Noah Browning in Ramallah and Lesley Wroughton, editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich

Israel, Palestinians grim on peace talks before Kerry visit Read More »

Both Is Neither

Leave a Comment / Culture, Film, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

In one of his nightclub routines from the early 1960s, Woody Allen describes his first marriage. “I was an atheist, and she was an agnostic. We couldn’t agree on what religion not to raise the children in.”

If only it were that funny. If only it were that easy.

Dual-faith parenting is back in the news. It recently got a prominent placement on the New York Times op-ed page.

In that essay, the author describes raising children of interfaith marriages in two religious traditions. She names the holidays that her family celebrates – a combined religious calendar of Jewish and Christian observances. She hopes that her children will ultimately decide which religious tradition they will follow, and that whatever religion they choose, they will have an understanding and an appreciation of the other. 

I am sensitive to the family dynamics and the spirit of compromise that brings people to such decisions. These are good, loving people who want to do the best that they can under challenging circumstances. 

I believe that children need a core religious identity. Children need a spiritual address. Children need a sense of belonging and of believing. They need to know who they are.

Children should not have to choose between Judaism and Christianity, especially when that inevitably means choosing one parent over another. More than that: Judaism is fighting an uphill battle in a culture that is, by default, Christian. It’s just not a fair “fight.”

Is it even possible to blend both religions? Not without ignoring or watering down some very important, basic truths. 

Take Judaism, for example. Here’s the Jewish “elevator speech”:  God revealed Torah to the Jewish people (however you want to understand that event – and, lucky us, we have no shortage of possibilities). The Sinai event gives us mitzvot. The purpose of Judaism is the fulfillment of the mitzvot as the way we sanctify our lives and redeem the world.

And the Christian elevator speech? Far be it from me to speak for Christians and for Christianity, and I loathe utter simplification, but if I understand the theological basis of Christianity correctly and sympathetically, it would sound something like this: God revealed the divine self/embodied the divine self through Jesus of Nazareth, whose teachings constitute a new Torah, and who died on the cross and was resurrected and who will someday return in glory. The essence of historical Christianity, as taught by Paul, is that the Christ event negates the mitzvot. They are not only unnecessary; they are actually counterproductive. 

Let’s talk about ceremonies. Baptism (in which the child is re-born in Christ) or brit milah/baby-naming, in which the child becomes part of the covenant of Abraham and Sarah? First communion, in which the child partakes (even symbolically or metaphorically) of the body and blood of Jesus Christ – or bar/bat mitzvah, in which a child shares and teaches Torah to a community?

Holidays? Jews don’t believe that the Messiah has come. Full stop. You can talk all you want to about how Christmas has become just an American gift-giving holiday, but I’m wondering if you’ve checked out that theory with Christians who really believe. 

OK, well, most people could care less about theology. What about “real,” day to day, “in the news” issues? 

True story. A mixed couple – Jewish mother, Presbyterian father — who were raising their kids as “both.” The (halachically Jewish) son decided that he wanted to go on Birthright. “Great,” says Mom. “Wait a second,” says Dad. “My church has been debating whether we should be boycotting Israel and divesting from it. I don’t believe that he should go.”

Another true story. A Jewish-Catholic couple and their child. They were contemplating switching off between a Jewish religious school and catechism. As the Jewish father said, “it’s no big deal.”

I asked them to consider a hypothetical and uncomfortable situation. What would happen if their daughter became pregnant at the age of fifteen?

With the speed and certainty of a game show contestant offering an answer, the Jewish father said: “Easy. She'll get an abortion.”

The Catholic mother screamed: “Like hell, she will!” and broke out in tears.

The husband was not offering a “Jewish” position on abortion, which is far more nuanced than we can delve into at this moment. He was merely parroting a “whatever” position. But the wife knew what the husband would not imagine: religion is serious stuff. It’s about real ethical issues, real life issues, real issues of meaning.

Years ago, the psychologist Robert J. Lifton wrote about “Protean Man,” named for the Greek mythological figure who could change his identity with relative ease. Lifton noticed that a new type of individual had emerged in our day: one whose interactions with his environment are characterized more by change and disruption than by stability and constancy. What has caused this new type of person? He answered: a loss of connection with the vital symbols of our cultural traditions. Lifton noted that people are starved for ideas that can give coherence to their world.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe that this is precisely what kids need. Not a Whole Foods salad bar of rituals and symbols to choose from. Rather, they need a central, defining story.

And they need a connection to a people that tells that story.

Both Is Neither Read More »

Retrieving a family’s thread in Poland

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment /

Louise Steinman's The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish- Jewish Reconciliation, interrupts the two universes of meaning hanging on the phrase: “it's history.”

For many, the words ” it's history” connote something is unimportant, forgotten, and irrelevant.  But for many Poles and Jews to assert “it's history” means, something is of vital, existential importance — that the past commands attention and understanding.  Polish and Jewish relations are complex. Even historical accounts differ. There are many issues, attitudes, distorted perceptions that demand careful study, hence the crooked mirror. The task of addressing and making ourselves aware of the distortions of history/memory is an arduous task.

The yawning chasm of distrust impedes conversation.  The unseemly competition among Poles and Jews for the status of chief victim is carried out with little compassion for the other. Steinman challenges that paradigm by chronicling her own initial avoidance of the subject and eventually an assertive search for dialogue partners.

Appropriately, the book begins with Louise Steinman's own story as she reluctantly accepts the Jonah-like mission to seek conversation and understanding with Poles that is assigned to her by her Buddhist influenced rabbi, Don Singer. With a strong initial sentiment of being sent on a fool's errand to meditate in Auschwitz with Jews and non-Jews, Steinman begins her journeys.  Along the way, Steinman meets many others who are skeptical or reluctant, even averse to the notion of reconciliation. This is the task of reconciliation, which is greatly advanced by Louise Steinman's new book.

In successive trips to Poland and the Polish lands (Vilnius — now in Lithuania, and Kolomay — now in Ukraine) a 10-year chronicle unfolds.  Steinman uncovers traces of her past from the city of Radomsko, and her aunt who stayed behind in Poland. A persistent search uncovers a Wilhelm cousin in Los Angeles who shares photos of pre-World War II Radomsko life. Another source to Steinman's work is and English Internet translation of the Radomsko memorial (Yizkor) book that allows the author to connect with the stories and the survivor's testimonies. These books were originally written in Yiddish or Hebrew by landsman, fellow residents from a particular town or region.

 Among the Radomsko landsman, Steinman finds a quirky Holocaust survivor who becomes a key informant. Eventually, the informant's testimony gives way to the story of a brave rescuer from Radomsko, who saved the survivor and four others. Both the rescued Jews and the Polish rescuer made a pact after the liberation not to disclose the events of the rescue because of a prevalent climate in Poland of suspicion and jealousy toward rescuers. (Did they enrich themselves? Did they endanger their fellow Poles for Jews? Are they secretly Jewish too, for siding with the Jews?) Steinman plays a key role in bringing the rescuer to the attention and to recognition of Yad V'Shem as a Righteous Gentile. Steinman's telling of that story brought me to tears.

The role of Poles who are now the major guardians of the history/memory of Jews in Poland is a key theme in the book. In Radomsko, the work of a journalist Maciej, leads to the serialization of a Polish translation of the Radomsko memorial book. The interest of locals in knowing something of the past of Radomsko's former residents is balm on the soul. During the publication of the memorial book the phones ring off the hook because the serialization is on hiatus for Christmas holidays.  With patience, knowledge, and enthusiasm the “Maciejs of the world” diminish the distrust on the Jewish side. They are precious to us for their efforts that translate to making a symbolic bridge to a past that belongs to both Poles and Jews.

The book eloquently and graciously reproduces many of the voices from this many-sided conversation that grows through the power of the long-term personal experiences, encounters and confrontations of the author.

The complexity and sensitivity displayed by the anecdotes advances the cause of dialogue but also gives a full-throated expression to the anguish of the survivors and their children, especially Cheryl – Steinman's sometime traveling companion. The pain and the personal anger borne by Jews betrayed by neighbors encounters the reality of the passage of time, the new internal reality of Polish society wedged between two factions — the Polish ultranationalist's sentiment of virtuous victims and the aspiration for a society dedicated to building a Polish civic society that integrates itself into the European Union.

I read this book seeking a comprehensive summary that would introduce Jewish visitors to Poland, not only to the Jewish issues but also to hearing the Polish ones. Last summer I led my first tour of Poland. I was surprised that the standard “Jewish” tour did not include the museum of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising led by the remnants of the Polish Army against the Nazi Germans. The Soviet army, the liberators watched from the other side of the Vistula. The museum profoundly demonstrates the betrayal that Poles felt from both their allies and their enemies.  

Understanding some of the basic realities of Polish experience requires the awareness of the loss of Poland's independence in the 1790's. Except for a brief 20-year period of independence, Poland remained in captivity until 1991. Prussian/German imperial forces, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian (Soviet) empires were the dominant powers in a Poland occupied and dismembered for nearly 200 years.

We are in Louise Steinman's debt for helping us move to another conversation that will continue the process of reconciliation. Not all matters will be settled, nor are there easy resolutions, but the sense of connection will grow.

As a rabbi working with the renewal of Progressive Judaism in Poland through the umbrella organization of Beit Polska (sponsored by Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland and the World Union for Progressive Judaism), I would have wanted a chapter on the surprising phenomena of people seeking to identify with Jews and Judaism. The phenomena of people seeking to rejoin the Jewish people, or even to know more about Judaism, is very moving to me. This difficult process is another part of the reconciliation.

 The efforts by the municipal government of Warsaw, the national Polish national government and survivors to build the Museum of the History of Polish Jews point to a world seeking a new horizon.  A persistent question “The Crooked Mirror:  A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation” asks is: Do the Poles miss us? Indeed, some of us Jews miss some Poles.

Louise Steinman will be featured in conversation with Jack Miles about The Crooked Mirror, and will sign copies of the book, at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, November 7, 2013, in the ALOUD program at the Central Library, 630 West Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071. For tickets and information, visit http://www.lfla.org/event-detail/893/The-Crooked-Mirror-A-Memoir-of-Polish-Jewish-Reconciliation

Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak has devoted himself to the revival and flourishing of Jewish congregations around the world, most recently Beit Warszawa in Poland and Neve Shalom in Parimaribo, Suriname. He also served for 19 years as Chaplain and Hillel Rabbi for The Claremont Colleges.

Retrieving a family’s thread in Poland Read More »

The problems with the problems with ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’

Leave a Comment / Culture, Film, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

Describing exactly the way Blue is the Warmest Color affected me, as I’m sure it did millions of people, is a struggle, especially from a critical standpoint. It’s an intimate and subjective reflection of people, places and times, carrying the hours with tides of raw emotion rather than frequent chronological plot points. If even one event had been cut, watching it may have felt more like sitting in Emma’s art gallery for three hours than watching a media-frenzied NC-17 Palme d’Or winner.

But carry the tides it did. I felt like every emotion of sorrow, lust, fulfillment, peace or regret my gut is capable of holding was twisted into a ball that replaced both my heart and my stomach. There was something otherworldly yet entirely familiar about each interaction and each scene. Yet the beauty and mysticism woven through every sound and every image couldn’t be recognized anywhere in my life. What came was a heightened sensitivity to vital aspects, vital outlooks that help comprise my day-to-day world, my day-to-day truth. This is a movie, really, about the layered young soul of woman.

Blue starts off fairly recognizable: classroom cliques, high school lip, awkward courtship. A 15-year-old Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) appears to struggle with sexuality, but at first the struggle seems more with her sexuality and not her sexuality. Adèle as a primal, salacious animal, “voracious” as Emma calls her, is shown through close-ups of her very busy mouth, incessant tossing of her hair and an insatiable hunger for all things carb. Like all teens, she is influenced by her friends and frustrated when their biddings blow up in her face, but she also emits an essence of caged closeted existence. Perhaps also not uncommon for teens, but hers is especially palpable. When Emma (Léa Seydoux) first enters her consciousness via a chanced crossing in the street (that trailer-famous scene), the true intentions of the film begin to unfold. Emma’s handsome, confident glances captured me as quickly as they did Adèle. One hypnotic bar meeting and high school courtyard tussle later, we’re off to the races.

The movie is chiefly told through close-ups; oftentimes Exarchopoulos’ teeth take up half the screen. Impacts of the world at large or strategically placed foretelling props are of little to no concern, as the secular world existing outside Emma and Adèle's Love Temple is not important to director Abdellatif Kechiche’s objective.  Mise en scene, schmise en scene – he let their intertwining fingers and legs, their bare eyelashes, a spaghetti slurp and a broken-hearted snot bubble tell the story. 

With buzz aplenty, the spicy rumors surrounding this cumming-of-age tale weren’t hard to find hiding in plain sight. “XXXPLICIT GIRL-ON-GIRL SEXCAPADES” or something equally brazen swarm conversations about Blue is the Warmest Color, but fear not the banality of such misguided simplifications. Constructive feedback of this nature comes largely from those hiding in YouTube comment threads, many who haven’t even seen the movie.

Sparking the chatter specifically is the seven-minute sex scene, which features the stark naked leading ladies biting, slapping, howling and gyrating in on and around each other with lustful raw instinct. It’s quite a sight. Very gripping, very hot. Like, ” target=”_blank”>Huffington Post article from Nico Lang titled “A Lesbian Movie Without Lesbians: The Problem With Blue is the Warmest Color,” he operates under an incorrect assumption when he writes, “For a film so strongly about the way lesbians have sex, a movie produced only by straight people will have a harder time representing that.” The Problem With Nico was his failure to understand that the movie was in no way about the way lesbians have sex. It meant to portray the intimate stages of love and heartbreak from an astoundingly soft, beautiful, and complicated place that most stories of love and loss do not. It strums and holds a familiar melody of the precious nostalgia born from all our great losses, including and especially the most sacred parts of the loss. For Adèle, the life-changing sexual relationship she experienced with Emma is just one of those sacred parts.

Julie Maroh, author of the book which the film is based, expressed dissatisfaction on her blog about the absence of actual lesbians on set, an observation that many reviews have pointed out. She and several other critics, mostly female, lament the picturesque Seydoux and Exarchopoulos interpreting lesbian sex as so unrealistically beautiful. Amy Taubin, an editor for Film Comment magazine, said, “They are exquisitely lit actresses pretending to have sex. They are made to look ridiculously, flawlessly beautiful.” But another observation Maroh made in the same post recognizes Kechiche’s right to creative authority in telling the story that her book inspired. Of course Kechiche owes a great deal to Maroh, but it was never his intention to regurgitate the book on screen. To these criticisms, he said, “What I was trying to do…was to film what I found beautiful. So we shot them like paintings, like sculptures.”

As he should have. Blue is the Warmest Color meant to portray what centuries of artists have attempted: the multi-layered beautiful mystery of woman. What he and these marvelous actresses created is utterly magnificent, and those griping about Exarchopoulos’ perky rear end are doing themselves a tragic injustice by not appreciating the intimate artistry before them. Taubin’s opinion that “no one would be interested in this movie if you take the sex out” is not only short-sighted and offensive, it’s arguably misogynistic.

But, fear not the banality of such misguided simplifications.